The Outlaw's Kiss (an Old West Romance) (Wild West Brides) (20 page)

“It’s notarized,” father added after a few moments
of uncomfortable silence.

“So I see. How did you get Sol Star to do anything
after dark? Normally he’s shacked up with one of my girls and doesn’t remove
himself until the sun comes and banishes the night.” He let that hang in the
air for a moment. “So that’s it then? It’s mine?”

“Ah, well, there’s the crass point of a payment,”
Mr. Clark said. “Er, sir.”

Mr. Swearengen slid his tongue over his teeth and
took a drink of whiskey from the bottle on his desk. “You paid fifty-six
thousand for the claim, yes?”

“How did you know?”

“Is that what you paid?”

He shifted nervously. “Well, yes, that’s right.
Fifty-six.”

“Uh-huh. And it’s not working out, is it? The
claim I mean; not as well as,” he paused, fluttering his fingers in father’s
direction. “Nowhere near that, is it? He’s got quite a trove under his feet.
You’ll be managing his mining operation?”

“Th – that’s right. And yes, the claim has some
gold, but it’s hard to get at, and there’s probably not very much.” Davis
clapped his hand over his mouth. I’d never seen him so shaken, but Mr.
Swearengen seemed to have that power over people.

Mr. Swearengen shook his head and massaged his
temples with two fingers on either hand. “You didn’t reveal anything I didn’t
know already,” he said, sucking a deep breath through his nose. “All right,
I’ll pay you twenty.”

Like a frightened rabbit, Davis Clark stood up.
“Twenty? I’ll take no such thing. That claim is worth –”

“Twenty,” Mr. Swearengen repeated in that cold
monotone. “If I plan to resell that land after this place is incorporated, I’ll
have to pay twice that to get the holes you’ve put all over it filled before
anyone will consider it. It’s worth less than twenty, but I like Clara.”

“I just, twenty, it’s just so little.” Mr. Clark
chewed his bottom lip.

Father shot Davis a worried glance. “I’ll make it
worth your while, Davis,” father said.

Mr. Clark crossed his legs, steepled his fingers,
then uncrossed his legs and tapped his foot. “Okay,” he said, standing
abruptly. “Twenty.”

He extended his hand to shake, which Mr.
Swearengen ignored in favor of reaching into his desk and pulling out a sealed
envelope which he then handed to me before resuming his seat. Davis’s title
went right on top of the pile, sliding partway off the stack, then dangling in
the air.

“What’s this?” I asked as I stuck a finger
underneath the seal.

“Don’t do that. Leave it sealed. It’s a letter, as
you can see.”

“Yes,” I said, “but can’t I read it?”

“You wanted evidence that your sweet Eli was
innocent.” His voice sounded like venom from the lips of a viper. “Well, there
you have it.”

“How did you get this?”

Mr. Swearengen cocked an eyebrow. “My reach
extends past the streets of this backwater camp, Miss James. When people want
to find
other people
, they come to me. In this case, a certain
lumpy-headed prospector wanted revenge. His message was obviously delivered to
the chief savage, as we saw him storm through town the other night, but his
letter was kept right here.” He patted his desk.

My stomach turned a flip.

“So this exonerates Eli?”

His eyes narrowed. “We’re not all so educated as
you, no matter how smartly we speak from time to time. If ‘exonerates’ means
‘proves innocent’ then yes, it does. I’ll warn you though; the natives are
growing restless. Townspeople, I mean. The natives don’t much care. I’d take
that letter to Sheriff Bullock under cover of darkness. Run along little dove,”
he said, waving his hands toward the door. “Go and save your not-quite outlaw.”

Before we were back out into the wild world of the
Gem, Mr. Swearengen had resumed reading his newspaper and drinking his whiskey
with his bare feet propped up on top of his desk.

October 8, 1878 – Early Morning

Deadwood Outskirts, Dakota Territory

––––––––

“T
his is,” Seth Bullock stared hard at the letter
in his hands, searching for words. “I can’t believe this. All of this, me
throwing my friend in jail, him making that big scene and turning himself in,
is
just a farce.”

“You knew it was, Seth, you told me as much.”

He shifted back and forth putting a hand in one
pocket then changed positions. Father left me off in front of Mr. Bullock’s
house where I’d awakened him. At my insistence, father and Mr. Clark agreed to
leave me to deliver the message.

When Seth emerged, he was shirtless, wearing only
a pair of thick-heeled boots with dark blue-jeans tucked into them.

Nodding, he paced along the front porch, one hand
on the rail. “I
knew
it, but never thought I’d be able to prove this was
all a frame-up.”

“Yes,” I said. “Well, there it is. Just like Mr.
Swearengen said. And there’s more.”

I handed him my journal, filled with notes about
the Rawls’s plan to kidnap my father, his plot to illegally acquire the claim,
and reports of his threatening behavior, along with a list of the injuries my
father sustained at his hand. I’d had the good sense to ask Mr. Clark to sign
his name as witness to all the claims I made. Silently, I thanked my lucky
stars for having the foresight to remove the pages with my doodles.

“And this is Davis Clark vouching for what you
say?” Seth tapped the signature running beside a description of my father’s
face.

“Yes sir, I thought it prudent.”

Seth grunted and laughed softly. “You’re a rare
breed, Clara. I know what he sees in you.”

At the mention of something so personal, I blushed
furiously. There was no point to hiding my embarrassment. “Oh, don’t be like
that,” he said. “Eli won’t keep his mouth shut about your virtues and your
character and how pretty he thinks your hair to be. In honesty, I wish he
didn’t like you
quite
so much as he does. Would certainly make
conversation more varied.”

Oddly, that was when I first noticed how refreshed
Mr. Bullock seemed to be. When last I saw him, he had become a wraith – gaunt
and pale. But standing there with him under the moonlight, his skin had resumed
its normal hue, his cheeks were fuller; a remarkable change after only a small
bit of time.

“I’m sorry he’s so smitten,” I said softly,
looking down at the floor.

“Oh now there’s a thing to say,” he said with a
warm tone. “My friend is happy, Clara. I’ve never seen him so pleased with
himself and with his life, and he’s behind damned jail bars!” He laughed again,
but his face and voice soon turned grave. “There’s one more order of business
though, and I’m afraid it won’t be terribly pleasant.”

“I don’t care what we have to do,” I said. “It
simply doesn’t matter. I’ll do anything in the world to make sure my Eli is
safe and sound.”

“And with you?” Seth wiggled his eyebrows and I
couldn’t help but laugh.

“I suppose so, yes. I miss him so, Seth, I can’t
begin to tell you. I’m so sorry that he was kept hidden for such a time, I –”

“That’s enough. You did what you thought to be
right. You wouldn’t abandon someone you cared about even when it was a danger.
I only wish I were so courageous.”

“Mr. Bullock, you shouldn’t be so hard on
yourself,” I touched his arm. “You have a duty, and you were doing it. If you
let your friend go simply because he was your friend, then your honor would be
forfeit.”

He nodded. “Even so.” And then he shook his head.
“Even so. You’re too kind, Clara, but we have work to do.”

“We?” I said, incredulous. “What could I possibly
–”

“You’re the witness. I’m arresting someone, uh,
two someones, on accusations. You’re the witness to those accusations.” Seth
thumped the cover of my journal. “And I’ll have to keep this as evidence for
the court in Yankton. All the circumstances in the world won’t convict a
criminal, but letters in his own hand and this,” he shook the notebook, “will.”

“I thought that I’d be able to give you that, and
just have Eli set free.”

He shook his head slowly. “I’m afraid it has to be
this way. We can’t let him go without someone else to charge. If you can’t
bring yourself to do it, I understand. If that’s the case, Mr. Clark will have
to accompany me, as he vouches for your statements.”

“No!” I almost shouted then calmed myself. “No,
no, it can’t wait. Mr. Swearengen warned me to do this under cover of night,
for fear of what the townspeople will do.”

“Likely he’s got the right of it. That old vulture
often does, as little as I like him.” He balled up his fists and massaged the
lower part of his back. “Come in,” Seth said. “I’ll need to be dressed a bit
more formally than this if I’m to execute the law. For some reason, people don’t
take shirtless men with unkempt hair very seriously.”

He retreated up the stairs while I waited by the
front door. “I’ll be just a few minutes. Make yourself comfortable,” he called
down.

The sparseness of Mr. Bullock’s quarters struck
me. There was no art, no intricate wood latticework or anything of the sort like
what marked the house father and I occupied. The extent of his possessions
seemed to be a pair of wooden rocking chairs arranged apparently at random in
the center of the sitting room, and a table with two chairs on opposite sides.

I heard him grumble about finding his badge, and
thought back to what Eustace Rawls said the second time I encountered him – the
first time he was capable of clear speech. He spoke of Seth’s lust for women,
and the string of them he left everywhere he went. This living space was not
the sort of place someone would keep if they were trying to impress a lady. In
fact, it seemed a space that was only rarely used.

A small writing desk with two pens mounted upon
it, and an open inkwell caught my attention. An open packet of stationery lay
on the surface, the top sheet of which was a half-written letter. Despite my
best efforts to the contrary, curiosity got the best of me.

“Dear Martha,
” it read in a curling script.
“Weather here is fine, though the house is lonely without you. I can’t tell
you how terribly my heart aches for you to be here with me. Every morning I
awake & find my bed empty of you, I hardly want to do anything but get up
& go after you. Soon, though not soon enough, this place will be either
safe enough for you and the children to join me, or it will be wild enough that
I simply leave.”

The words he wrote touched my soul. It was
difficult to believe they’d come from the normally gruff Seth Bullock. The tenderness
with which he addressed his wife was just stunning. I continued, ashamed at my
snooping, but unable to stop myself.

“This morning last, my friend Eli returned from
his short absconding. He was hiding with a lady whom you would like very much,
I believe. She has a kind heart & a most polite manner. Anyway, Eli has
quite fallen in love with her & I expect they’ll be married soon, or else
he’ll go insane from all the pining he does whilst in the jail. Ha-ha. It
weighs heavy on me to keep him locked up, but that’s the trouble of a lawman.”

“Clara? Oh, my, so you found my secret.”

“I’m so sorry Seth. I couldn’t help myself from
looking. You write so well and you had such beautiful words that I –”

He raised a dismissive hand. “I’m not ashamed of
my feelings for my wife. Why should I be? No less than Eli is ashamed of his
for you. Though as I said, I do sometimes wish he’d find another way to express
himself than to tell me of your beauty and decency for the eighth time in two
days.”

“I can hardly believe what you’re saying. He does
that? Truly? You can’t be telling the truth.”

Seth just smiled like a bemused cat and nodded.
“Come on,” he said, tilting his head toward the door. “We’ve got something
that’s needed doing for a long, long time. I’d like to gather a couple of
deputies, but I’m not sure we could do it fast enough.” He thought for a moment
and then shook his head. “No, no time. We’ll have to drag them to the jail
ourselves. I don’t like asking you to do this, but I promise no harm will come
to you. Okay?”

I nodded somehow full of purpose instead of
terror.

*

T
he trek to the other side of Deadwood, the
outskirts where the majority of the prospectors lived, took only a few minutes.
As soon as we crested the hill delineating the town proper from the tent-lined
transient living area, Seth’s hand went to one of his pistols.

“Watch yourself,” he said softly. “The folks out
in these parts won’t take kindly to a sheriff lurking about in their territory.
Stay close behind me. Oh, here, hold on to this.” He pressed a boot-knife into
my hand. It had a small blade maybe three inches in length, but even that made
me feel slightly more at ease.

“All right,” I whispered. “How do you know they’ll
be here, and not at the Gem?”

A groan from a nearby tent made both of us duck
low and turn in its direction. Seth shook his head. “Swearengen won’t let them
in. They make too much trouble.”

“Trouble? For the Gem? That’s saying quite a bit,”
I said, stifling a chuckle. He turned back and smiled, then signaled for me to
stay low and keep quiet.

Silently, we crept through the tent town. It
struck me as a point of great curiosity that so many of the townspeople lived
in constructed homes like Mr. Bullock and myself, but then there were all these
others who were subsisting on nothing but, evidently beans, and living on the
ground underneath tents. I kicked a whiskey bottle on accident, and the man
occupying the nearest tent groaned, then stirred.

“Shhh,” Seth put his finger to his lips, and
stayed still for a moment. When he was satisfied that the man wasn’t going to wake,
he continued, motioning for me to follow.